In the post-COVID era, the housing market has sat pretty firmly in seller’s territory. Record high home prices, elevated mortgage rates and inflation have all kept many buyers on the sidelines. For those that have entered the playing field, though, they’ve been faced with sellers who would more often delist a home rather than lower the price due to the lock-in effect that has them comfortably living with a low mortgage rate.
However, now that we’ve experienced several years of continued economic and market challenges, demand has become so pent up that the lock-in effect appears to be losing its grip.
A new report from Redfin found that as the market shifts and the pent-up demand begs to release, seller concessions have been on the rise. Specifically, Redfin’s data saw 44.7% of buyers receive seller concessions during a home purchase in August, up from 42.6% a year earlier. This was also the highest share of seller concessions in August since 2020.
In line with this trend, Realtor.com® recently reported that delistings fell 12.6% year-over-year in August, and saw no “notable” spike month-over-month in either July or August.
Realtor.com Senior Economist Jake Krimmel said that sellers have begun to embrace “pricing realism” in the face of a shifting market, which has led to historically better activity in 2026’s spring and summer seasons.
“The good news is sellers’ pricing realism has helped the market sidestep a repeat of 2025, when the market stalled with buyers and sellers too far apart and unwilling or unable to budge,” he explained.
Additionally, Redfin found that not only are sellers offering concessions, but some are also dropping prices in conjunction. Specifically, the report saw 15.8% of home sales in August experience both a price drop and seller concessions.
The Sun Belt leads the way
Redfin also reported that out of the top 10 metros where seller concessions were most common, eight were in the Sun Belt region. All top 10 metros also saw shares of over 50%.
Of said Sun Belt metros, Atlanta, Georgia, led the charge with 72.8% of buyers receiving seller concessions in August. This was followed by Charlotte, North Carolina (67.9%); Phoenix, Arizona (67.4%); Raleigh, North Carolina (66.3%); Nashville, Tennessee (63.1%); Houston, Texas (58.5%); Riverside, California (58%); and Virginia Beach, Virginia (57.7%).
The two non-Sun Belt metros in the top 10 were Las Vegas, Nevada, and Denver, Colorado, with shares of 66.7% and 58.4% home sales with a concession, respectively.
In addition, the Sun Belt metros of Phoenix, Arizona; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Riverside, California, also saw seller concessions grow the most year-over-year by 15.3, 9.3 and nine percentage points, respectively.
